Josh and the Magic Vial

by Craig Spence

  Shaking his head, Ian said no, which — strictly speaking — was true.

  “There, you see,” Endorathlil tutted. “I told you Conky.”

  The leader of the Street Level Gang scowled.

  “What!” the witch cried. “Still not satisfied? You are a hard one to convince, Conky McDougal,” she sighed. “Is it because there were only three of us in the room — only three who knew what happened to Master Dempster while he was unconscious? Is that what makes you suspicious?”

  Ian crouched forward, balling his fists in his lap. He would go for Conky first, disable him if he could, then ward off Endorathlil if he had to. Trying for the back door would be hopeless, unless he could buy some time. Endorathlil had locked it. Conky would be on him before he could get it opened. He still might have the element of surprise though. Conky was too cocky. He thought Ian wouldn’t dare strike first. The leader of the Street Level Gang wanted to tease his prey the same way a cat would toy with a mouse.

  “Now!” Ian’s instincts told him. “Now!”

  Endorathlil droned on about how she had lost something precious, because someone must have told the Dempster kid about her twisted little ceremony.

  “There will be others,” Ian figured. They wouldn’t have set their trap without planting some heavies inside the shop. Still, if he acted first, he might be able to elude them, or to kick, punch, and claw his way to the front door and through the glass. Or! Suddenly a plan came to him. A desperate, last ditch kind of plan, but . . .

  Now! he panted.

  “We’ve had to take precautions,” Endorathlil was saying.

  “Just in case it was you . . . ”

  Ian gathered all his strength, crouching on the edge of his seat. Suddenly, he uncoiled like a powerful spring, lunging forward, hooking the edge of the table in his arms, and ramming it into Conky. The fearless leader of the Street Level Gang didn’t have time for anything other than a startled look and a surprised “Awk!” as he went under. Ian then tipped the table and tumbled it toward the passageway into the shop.

  “Get him! Get him!” Endorathlil shrieked.

  Twisting round, Ian made for the door.Home! Adele! Hide! A staccato of thoughts punctuated his swift movements. His fingers were on the knob, he’d twisted open the deadbolt . . .

  A fist crashed into his neck, sending him reeling sideways. Ian spun in time to avoid a second blow and to grab Conky by the throat. No escape. There would be no escape. Squeezing as hard as he could, he uncoiled again, forcing Conky backwards and down. For an instant he savoured the panic in Conky’s eyes. He squeezed even harder. “I’ll kill you,” he growled.

  Then the melee he had anticipated struck full force. Someone grabbed his hair and pulled him back. A fist connected with his cheek, a boot with his ribs. Still, he choked Conky McDougal, funneled all his strength into his strangling grip. “Kill you!” he yelled. Then a shattering blow knocked him over and the world slewed into slow motion.

  The last thing he heard was Endorathlil screeching at his assailants. “Stop!” she hollered. “Stop! We need him alive, you fools!”

  But Conky’s thugs were in no mood to listen.

  17

  This is the dumbest stunt you’ve ever pulled,” Millie groaned.

  Josh moped. She was right, of course. When was Millie Epp ever not right? Still, he didn’t feel an ounce of regret. “I didn’t steal it,” he reminded himself. “I rescued it.”

  Having discovered some of the vial’s properties, he was more convinced than ever that he had been right to take it. “I’m not going to give it back, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, sounding more defiant than he’d intended.

  “You won’t have to,” Millie shot back, shaking with anger. “Because they’ll come and get it. Did you ever think of that?”

  The two of them were perched on the railing on opposite sides of his postage stamp balcony. North, across False Creek, the office towers of Vancouver glittered. The leaves of the big, old chestnut tree on Tenth Avenue rattled in the evening breeze, cars whisked by anonymously. Everything seemed normal, but somehow changed.

  “It’s stealing, Josh,” Millie insisted.

  Through her he heard his mother and father — and perhaps all the mothers and fathers that had ever been. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, son.” Or, “If you don’t respect other people’s rights, how can you expect them to respect yours?” Or, “You can’t take the law into your own hands.” Millie could have been their ambassador. Maybe he shouldn’t have called her. There were some things Millie just couldn’t deal with.

  “This is different,” he argued.

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain it Mil. I know it sounds crazy, but I need this vial to save myself from Endorathlil.”

  “Um, I’m sorry but that does sound crazy Josh.”

  He dangled the vial between them, pinching it by the neck.

  “Put it away!” Millie hissed. “What if somebody sees?”

  “Look at it Mil. I want to prove to you I’m not nuts.”

  “Josh!” she pleaded.

  “Look!”

  Rolling her eyes, Millie forced herself to obey. In the gathering dusk the vial pulsed with colour. Greens, reds, blues, swirled round, a minute storm inside the glass. Transfixed, Millie stared.

  “Should I give you back to Endorathlil?” Josh asked.

  Millie glanced at him, frowning. He gestured toward the vial.

  “Watch.”

  At first nothing happened, then the spectrum of light whirling within began to shift farther and farther toward the red. After a few seconds, it glowed like a stoplight in Josh’s palm.

  “Red means no,” Josh interpreted.

  Dumbfounded, Millie stared with her mouth opened, but her tongue paralyzed.

  “It knows what we’re saying,” Josh explained. “I figured it out by accident, really. I was talking to myself, and whenever I asked a question, it seemed to change colours: red for ‘no’; green for ‘yes’; yellow for ‘I don’t know’.”

  “It’s responding to the heat in your hand,” Millie sniffed.

  “It’s a chemical reaction. You might be able to market it as a lie detector.”

  Josh laughed. He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Let’s test your theory,” he said, placing the vial on the railing and stepping back.

  “Should I open you up?” he inquired.

  In a flash the bottle changed colour from red, to yellow, then to green.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Millie jeered.

  “‘Yes, but be careful.’ That’s why it stopped at yellow for a second.”

  Agitated, Millie hopped down from her rail. She wanted to pace, but couldn’t in the tight enclosure. Instead she shifted her weight from one foot to another, staring at him. “How did you do that?” she demanded.

  Josh shrugged. He didn’t know. “You ask it something, Mil,” he suggested.

  “This is crazy,” she exploded. “I don’t want to ask a stupid, old bottle any questions.” Like a squirrel in a cage, she shifted back and forth. “How can you expect me to believe this, Josh? It’s got to be a trick.”

  “It’s no trick Millie.” he assured her.

  “It’s got to be!” she shouted, glaring at him and at the vial. “And I’m going to kill you when I find out how it works. This isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not laughing,” he wailed. “I’m trying to get you to believe the truth, Millie, because I need someone to believe me.”

  Her eyes turned three shades darker, from pale to emerald green, and her wild mop of hair seemed to double in size. “Step away from the vial,” she ordered.

  “Jeez, Mil, you sound like a New York cop.”

  She gave him a look that said he would have been dead if she’d had a Colt 45 in her hands. “Just move,” Millie said.

  He didn’t like to leave the bottle sitting unguarded. What if the railing shook, and it toppled off? But the way Millie glared left him no
choice. Josh backed away.

  For a long time she stared at the vial, watching its silent pyrotechnics. Then she cleared her throat. “Is Josh in danger?” she asked.

  The bottle glowed green.

  “Green means . . . ”

  “Shut up!” Millie snapped.

  “Should we take you to the police?”

  Red.

  “Will she come after you?”

  Brilliant green.

  “Can you help us?”

  Still green, but with flashes of yellow.

  “This can’t be,” Millie scowled.

  Suddenly she bolted into his room. For a terrible moment Josh thought she was going to leave entirely — that Millie would clump right on out the door, down the stairs, and up the street, leaving him alone. She didn’t though. Instead, she paced frantically, trying to understand what she had just experienced, muttering and raking her fingers through her thick mane.

  Josh pocketed the vial and — when he thought it safe — followed her in.

  “I still can’t believe it,” she complained. “But I can’t deny it either. This makes nonsense of everything that’s normal.”

  “But you know it’s not a trick?”

  “It’s not a trick,” she admitted.

  “And you will help me?”

  “What a stupid question,” she sighed. “But just because I am going to help, doesn’t mean I like what you’ve done Josh Dempster.”

  “But?” he coaxed.

  She rolled her eyes. “But now that we know what we do about it, we can’t give the vial back. No.”

  “And I can’t tell my parents about it.”

  “Why not?” she bridled.

  He patted his pocket. “Because I’ve asked, and it said ‘no’, that’s why.”

  Josh sensed her anguish, even though she tried to hide it. Millie’s instinct was to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She had never in her entire life told a lie, as far as Josh knew, or even concealed a truth from her mother. The thought of doing so must have weighed heavily, as if she had sunk to the bottom of an unfathomed ocean, where the pressure of her own guilt crushed her.

  “Thanks Mil,” he said quietly.

  But Millie was in no mood to be thanked.

  “You know what night it is tonight, don’t you?” he asked.

  She frowned, puzzled by the question.

  “It’s the night of the full moon.”

  From anger, her expression dissolved into concern. “I don’t believe any of this stuff Josh,” she said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Josh wished he could believe that — wished he hadn’t heard the quaver of doubt in his best friend’s voice.

  18

  Endorathlil sat perfectly still, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap. She breathed slowly, clearing her mind, relaxing her body. For the spell to work she had to slip into a trance — the eye of the storm, it was called in The Book of Syde . . .

  “Damn!” she muttered.

  Thoughts of Ian Lytle haunted her. Badly as they’d beaten him, he hadn’t broken. Not even when she’d threatened his sister. He had agreed to do her bidding, but Endorathlil knew a dangerous enemy when she saw one, and he was a dangerous enemy. Conky McDougal was a puffed-up toad next to the quiet strength of an Ian Lytle.

  And here she was preparing to send Adele Lytle’s soul into Syde. If he’d known that, he would have killed her or died trying. Endorathlil didn’t have any doubt of it. Once he found out what she’d done, he would be very dangerous indeed.

  If she’d had her wits about her, she could have sent him to Vortigen along with his brat of a sister. Plenty of blood, hair, and nail clippings could have been collected when Conky’s thugs had him pinned to the floor. But the opportunity had slipped by, and now their enmity was an open wound.

  “Idiot!” she cursed herself. It had been a serious mistake.

  Adele would have to go though, regardless of the risk. For one thing, Endorathlil could not brook Ian’s rebelliousness and wanted revenge; for another, she needed to practice the Spell of Transmigration; finally, she wanted to get Vortigen’s attention with a sort of “appetizer” sacrifice.

  In all the years she had been in possession of The Book, she had never once uttered the Spell of Transmigration in earnest. She had read the passage many times, and practiced the chant until she knew it by heart. But her Grandfather Sirus had been the last person to actually use the spell successfully, and he had used it often. Josh Dempster would not be Endorathlil’s first offering. That honour would go to the girl.

  Still, she hesitated. Sending a soul from one world to another was serious business — murder, truth be known — and even now she quailed. If she hadn’t spotted the Dempster child, and recognized who he might be, she never would have considered using the spell.

  But to think that she, Endorathlil, might be the one to achieve everlasting fame by finding Vortigen’s heir! That temptation overwhelmed the last vestige of goodness in her. Sirus Blackstone would have mocked her cruelly for not using The Book’s powers. “Vortigen is grateful for any offerings,” he would have taunted. “Those who are not princes will be subjects, and those who are not subjects will be slaves. He has a use for everyone you send his way.”

  “Hush!” Endorathlil tried to still her wayward thoughts. “I must concentrate.”

  She closed her eyes against the light. More than that, though, she sponged even the memory of light from her mind. “People do not understand the nature of darkness,” she thought. “Darkness doesn’t scurry into cracks and holes when a light is switched on.” To her, all the brightness in the universe amounted to nothing more than the twinkling of distant stars in the vast abyss of space. A lover of darkness — like all witches and warlocks — she appreciated even the texture and taste of darkness. Most of all, though, she could see through the illusion of light to its inner shadow.

  The Spell of Transmigration works best on the night of a full moon, The Book said. If the sorcerer is to have any chance at all of pleasing Lord Vortigen, his offering must be made under the full moon’s influence, and the sorcerer must be in tune with that influence. The accepted offering is blood, hair, and nail clippings obtained from the candidate. These must be burned in a sanctified bowl, while the sorcerer chants the Spell of Transmigration. The scent will be sweet to Vortigen if the rite is performed proficiently.Beware, however, for the offering will be offensive to him if the rite is clumsily executed, or if the offering is unworthy.

  Remembering all this, Endorathlil calmed herself. She sat perfectly still — so still that anyone observing her would have mistaken her for a bundle of old clothes. The light from her candles wavered through the parchment of her eyelids, but she saw through this into the utter dark. Her breathing slowed. Then slowed some more, until it almost stopped. Then the calm she had sought descended upon her — a terrible calm, which you might expect to find at the very centre of the universe.

  She was ready.

  Endorathlil lifted the brass bowl from the carpet before her. She mixed a little powder in with the bowl’s contents, an agent that would burn fiercely, consuming the blood and hair of the girl, turning them to smoke and ashes. Then she lit a taper and lowered it into the bowl. The offering flared, sending wraiths of smoke curling into the air.

  Endorathlil’s eyes gleamed. She breathed in some of the smoke herself, as The Book recommended.

  “Vortigen,” she began. “I send you these tokens of the child Adele Lytle, the essence of blood and hair. She is yours now, Lord of Syde. The scent of her is in the air and she cannot escape. This I offer freely, in obedience and devotion, dread Lord. This I offer as a humble servant, expecting a humble servant’s reward.”

  Down the hall from Conky’s apartment an old cocker spaniel twitched and whined in its sleep. The dog’s master stroked his beloved pet gently. “That’s okay, boy,” he crooned. The dog awoke for just a second, gave its master a bewildered look, then curled up and went back to sleep.r />
  Vortigen sat at the head of a very long table heaped with delicacies. The Plain of Tilth had produced an abundance, as always: oranges, apples, bananas, pears, ham, beef, every conceivable variety of cheese, wine, beer. His lieutenants dug in to the feast with relish, the hubbub of their cheering, carving and shouting filling the hall — a pleasing pandemonium. Vortigen liked to see his soldiers enjoying themselves. They were a brave company, ready for anything — quick to do his bidding.

  He smiled benignly so they could see he was happy.

  Then he remembered the empty chair beside his, and his smile withered into a scowl. The seat of his heir was yet empty, as it had been from the very beginning. During all the centuries he had scooped out the caverns of Syde, built its palace and walls, its town and its farms — during all the ages he had gathered in its populace — that chair had remained unoccupied. No one had found him an heir.

  Perhaps the human tribe was incapable of producing one. What then? Vortigen frowned at his own stupidity. The Ancient Law decreed an heir would share the double throne one day, and that Vortigen’s council would be complete. No one, not even the Lord of Syde could gainsay Ancient Law . . . He inhaled deeply. A full moon shone down on Outworld. Perhaps there would be an offering. Sacrifices had become less frequent these days. Sorcery was out of fashion, he supposed. People didn’t have much time for magic when they were so busy watching television sets and computer screens.

  Vortigen laughed.

  Magic would come back in vogue. It always did. The smoke of offerings would waft through the hallways of the Emerald Palace in due course. All that was needed was some great catastrophe on earth, and Vortigen didn’t doubt for a moment that the human tribe would soon produce one of those. They made war when an intelligent species would have been too busy celebrating God’s bounty; plagues where an abundance should have been harvested. A more stubborn, quarrelsome, conniving, delightful breed Vortigen could not imagine and nature could not have devised. The gods must have been rumbling with mirth when they hatched humankind.